We came across this report by AJ Renold, who is a representative of Opportunity International, a capacity-building initiative for community based organizations.
In sum, Opportunity International is supporting a group called Youth Initiatives Tanzania (YITA). In turn, YITA is financially supporting the Ngao Youth Group who are targeting sustainable income-generating initiatives that help young entrepreneurs in Dar-es-Salaam.
An extract from Renold’s post:
Until the start of the partnership with Opportunity Tanzania, YITA youth groups have been limited in their access to formal credit for their businesses. The YITA youth groups’ businesses operate using only the savings capital accumulated by members, an issue identified by YITA staff as constraining the potential of the businesses. As a pilot to a product specific to YITA youth groups, Opportunity Tanzania is making a group loan available to the NGAO Youth Group for use in their maize processing business.
The NGAO group is made up of 24 youths who have come together to participate in YITA’s program and build a business together. With a small office in the Manzese neighborhood, the NGAO group operates a maize processing and unloading business. The group is situated in an area where bags of maize are brought from rural areas around Dar es Salaam for processing into flour. Trucks arrive and NGAO group members work to unload the maize for processing. When the group has built the working capital to purchase maize, they buy and process hundreds of kilograms of maize. Their main income-earning activity is the maize processing, while they support themselves and build capital by unloading ten or more truckloads per week. Limited by working capital, the NGAO group only had capital to purchase and process maize two times per month. After taking a group loan from Opportunity Tanzania, the youth group should be able to increase their maize processing activities to four times per month and significantly increase their income.
Thanks AJ! Hopefully more youth in Dar-es-Salaam will be able to take this opportunity to expand on their entrepreneurial capacity.
Great stuff. I guess microfinancing is the hot topic for current assisted development projects. A great move by YITA especially for this work empowering locals of places like Manzese, or Tandale. Most of these residents have no bank accounts, and own no land/or house (thus lack title deeds) which are important when seeking loans etc. Such loans and business education is very important for them. Such initiatives can change many people’s lives e.g Jane in NRB.